Julian Levine

Researching how people learn language & literacy.

Ph.D. candidate at UCI School of Education, specializing in language and literacy development.

About me Google Scholar ↗ ORCID ↗ Email ↗
Background
Julian Levine
Julian Levine
Ph.D. Candidate
UCI School of Education
jslevine@uci.edu

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Teaching, Learning, and Educational Improvement (TLEI) cluster at the UCI School of Education. As a member of the Digital Learning Lab, I am currently conducting research on the Converse to Learn project, investigating how AI-powered conversational agents can enhance children’s learning from educational media.

As an educator, I taught English in South Korea for two and a half years, tutored calculus at the UC Berkeley Athletic Study Center for a year and a half, and have served as a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses in education at UC Irvine. I am also a 2026 Pedagogical Scholar through UCI’s Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation.

In my free time, I enjoy learning languages, including Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. In addition, in collaboration with my brother, I make educational songs and animated music videos for children.

Research Interests

Language and literacy development · Vocabulary · Educational technology · AI in education · Early childhood learning · Meta-analysis

Education
Ph.D., Education — Teaching, Learning & Educational Improvement (Language & Literacy)
University of California, Irvine
Expected June 2027
M.A., Education — Teaching, Learning & Educational Improvement
University of California, Irvine
June 2025
M.A., Education — Social Research Methodologies
University of California, Berkeley
May 2022
B.A., Economics (Honors with Highest Distinction) · Minor in Psychology
University of California, San Diego
June 2016
Skills

ACER ConQuest · Adobe Photoshop · Adobe Premiere Pro · ATLAS.ti · Dedoose · Google Workspace · MAXQDA · Microsoft Office · Moho · R · STATA

Scholarship

Research & Publications

Projects
Converse to Learn
Active · NSF-funded

Investigating how AI-powered conversational agents embedded in educational media can enhance children’s language and literacy outcomes. Conducted at the UCI Digital Learning Lab.

PI: Prof. Mark Warschauer
Visit project ↗
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
He, K., Cervera, K., Levine, J., Xu, Y., Collins, P., & Warschauer, M. (2025)
Promoting parent-child shared reading with a bilingual conversational agent.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 103, 103489.
DOI ↗
Xu, Y., He, K., Levine, J., Ritchie, D., Pan, Z., Bustamante, A., & Warschauer, M. (2024)
Artificial intelligence enhances children’s science learning from television shows.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 116(7), 1071–1092.
DOI ↗
Collins, P., Leo, M. S., Eslami, M., Hebert, M., Levine, J., & Lee, J. W. (2023)
The motivational beliefs and attitudes about writing of international students enrolled in online academic English classes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1232664.
DOI ↗
Registered Reports (accepted in principle)
Xu, Y., Pan, Z., Levine, J., He, K., Thomas, T., & Warschauer, M. (2025)
The effects of interactions with AI-enhanced media characters on learning computational thinking.
Learning and Instruction.
Xu, Y., Pan, Z., Levine, J., He, K., Tran, J. E., Bustamante, A., & Warschauer, M. (2025)
Effects of using artificial intelligence to support children’s STEM learning from educational television programs: Evidence from a home-based intervention.
Child Development.
Selected Conference Presentations
Levine, J., Wolters, A., & Kim, Y.-S. (2026, April)
Vocabulary matters beyond reading comprehension: Evidence from a meta-analysis.
AERA Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA.
He, K., Cervera, K., Levine, J., et al. (2024, May)
A home study of parent-child co-reading with a bilingual conversational agent.
CHI 2024 Extended Abstracts, Honolulu, HI.
Best Paper Award
Levine, J. (2023, May)
Embedding conversational agents in children’s media to foster vocabulary learning.
9th Annual UC Davis Symposium on Language Research.
Travel Grant Award

See full CV for complete list of presentations, invited talks, and professional activities. Google Scholar ↗

Writing

Blog

Coming soon
Coming soon
Coming soon
Get in touch

Contact

I’m always happy to connect — whether you’re a fellow researcher, a student, a language learner, or someone interested in education and technology.

Email
jslevine@uci.edu
Institution
UCI School of Education
Address
401 E. Peltason Drive, Suite 3200
Irvine, CA 92617
Research lab
Digital Learning Lab ↗
Google Scholar
View profile ↗
ORCID
0009-0004-1200-8939 ↗